On such a price move in Bitcoin, someone trading on margin could see their account wiped out using only 6:1 leverage. By contrast, the average daily volatility in EUR/USD is 0.63% at the time of this post: https://www.mataf.net/en/forex/tools/volatility

That's why FOREX.com can offer up to 50:1 leverage in the US (in compliance with CFTC regulations) and even higher outside the US for major currencies (less for exotic currencies).

Leverage magnifies gains and losses, so it's important to evaluate the volatility in price for a particular currency before trading it with leverage. This is exponentially true for cryptocurrencies as we have seen recently!

A trader may have lost about 400,000 pounds ($662,100) in under 30 seconds on Thursday after causing a 10 percent spike in the shares of Europe's biggest bank, HSBC (HSBA.L), which traders blamed on human error - a "fat finger" trade.

The jump in the price - a seismic move in a company worth nearly 120 billion pounds - prompted a "circuit-breaker" to kick in and suspend HSBC shares from trading for five minutes, after which an orderly market in its shares resumed.

It's worth noting the market cap of HSBC referenced in the article is greater than the combined market caps of both Bitcoin and Etherium currently. The article also mentions a "circuit-breaker" which is another safety measure GDAX may want to consider for their Etherium exchange.